


i had no chance to prepare (i couldn't see you coming)

by palermos



Category: Andi Mack (TV), Disney - All Media Types
Genre: Ambi - Freeform, Kippen Siblings, M/M, NOT a buffy/tj fic, TJ is oblivious, Tyrus - Freeform, background muffy, i really love these characters, implied internalized homophobia, thelonious jagger is a mess, this is one of my first fics ever go easy please, tj perspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-08-10 00:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20126191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palermos/pseuds/palermos
Summary: love has never come easy to the kippen family. the kippen siblings have always been aware of that fact.amber defies this, she is brave, smart, confident in who she loves.it's never come so easily for tj.





	i had no chance to prepare (i couldn't see you coming)

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i'm sandy and this is obviously really short but i haven't written fanfiction in so long (esp not anything i've wanted to publish) so i'm majorly rusty. i hope you enjoy my little fic!

_A common interest in the same musicians isn’t enough to keep a marriage afloat,_ TJ learns, when his parents separate after their twelfth year of marriage. Amber has just turned eleven, and prides herself in knowing how the world works, how people tick.

“I knew it was gonna happen.” She tells him, blunt as ever. “You can’t force somethin’ that isn’t there, you know?”

He’s only ten years old, but he thinks he understands what she means. He thinks it’s fair to assume that for them, for most people, love is unattainable and fleeting.

He says as much, in more juvenile terms, and Amber rolls her eyes.

“Teej, one day we’re gonna find people, and we’re just gonna know.”

He doesn’t really understand what there is to know. His parents were together twelve years, and it seems like they never really knew anything.

...

_He’s thirteen when he meets her._ Buffy Driscoll, proud and cocky and a reminder that he will never be enough, not even in what he’s good at.

Through all his cruelty and unfairness, he considers the notion that he might love her. There’s no other way to explain the butterflies in his stomach when he’s around her & her group of friends, when she and Cyrus share a knowing look or inside joke he knows he’ll never be a part of.

When he tells Amber he thinks he’s in love with Buffy, she laughs.

Which stings, by the way.

“How did you come to that conclusion?” She inquires, after recovering from a fit of giggles induced by his hesitant confession. They’re sitting in the treehouse their dad built in the backyard, one their mother hates — a reminder that he’s gone, they both suppose — and she’s looking at him with an expression he can’t quite read. It could be pity.

“Is there any other explanation? How do I get so — why am I so fluttery around Cyrus and her and Andi?”

At Andi’s name, Amber perks up, because her brother’s anguished confession of love holds no candle to her affection for the short-haired girl.

“You said Cyrus first.” She states, looking at him as though this is a puzzle he should have assembled months ago.

“What?”

“You said Cyrus before you said Buffy.” She’s wide-eyed now, in evident disbelief, her façade of the cool older sister cracked, if only for a second.

“So?”

Amber’s face assumes a mask of neutrality once again. “Never mind. You’ll figure it out, Teej.”

He’s momentarily jarred out of his confession, with Amber watching him like she used to watch their father, in the nights leading up to that final decision, that ultimatum. _Like she’s figured out what he just can’t quite grasp._

“You’re going to find hi—your person, Thelonius.” His sister states, eyes twinkling. “They might even like your dumbass name.”

He hates her. But he really doesn’t.

...

_He doesn’t think Kira is his person._ He doesn’t feel the butterflies he felt around Buffy when she was with Cyrus and Andi. They’ve turned to vultures in his stomach, always there, constantly reminding him how little he’s done to deserve the kindness Cyrus keeps showing him, even if he’s always going along with Kira. Cyrus has become his best friend, and he supposed he must be reminded of Buffy when he’s around because the vultures are vanquished when they speak.

Cyrus looks at him like he’s hearing all the thoughts in TJ’s head, every notion of self-deprecation, and disagrees.

The breaking point, the point where he truly realizes how little he cares for Kira, is when she insults Cyrus. When she laughs at him as if he isn’t just having fun. This is the point where he locks eyes with Amber, so conveniently dancing with Andi at the same party, and her expression reflects his. Disbelief, somewhat, but relief. Relief she seems to understand, even if he doesn’t.

He sees Kira’s anger, her mouth moving as she storms out, but he doesn’t listen. And he doesn’t feel anything but guilt for the way he’s watched her treat the people he cares most about.

_The person he cares most about, he realizes, isn’t Buffy._ He watches as she and Marty — at least he thinks that’s Marty — stumble back into the party, giddy and all over each other. He doesn’t feel any jealousy. Just warmth. A warmth that he’s friends with people who he doesn’t have to hide from, people who aren’t just Amber with her knowing looks and blunt sentences.

Then, like the time he and Amber got caught in a rainstorm on the way back from a camping trip, it hits him. Suddenly, ferociously, and all at once. He’s drenched by the realization, completely unprepared. His hands are shaking by the time he’s alone with Cyrus. It suddenly makes sense. Amber’s disbelief, _the way his father used to look at him — like he was a flaw in an otherwise perfect equation,_ and how he feels, anxious and invigorated, when he’s around Buffy’s friends.

He’s in love with Cyrus Goodman. He has been since that first day in the cafeteria, when he stepped on the muffin just to spite Buffy, just to kill the butterflies in his stomach when he looked — when he looked at Cyrus, not Buffy.

_“Is there anything you want to tell me?” _

It’s less of a question than it appears, more of a vulnerable invitation. But there’s so much he wants to say, so much that he can’t convey from simple sentences in the middle of a cluttered party filled with people he doesn’t know. He could write pages to this boy, the boy who is sitting in front of him, an anxious smile spread across his soft features.

...

“You’ll just know.” That’s what Amber had announced when TJ asked her what constituted someone you were made for.

It’s what she had repeated through childhood and into adolescence, and it’s how she had answered when he asked her how she knew she was in love with Andi.

“Teej, it doesn’t come easy. But it will come.”

...

He’s shocked by his boldness, almost unbelieving when he reaches his hand out, and his fingers intertwine with Cyrus’s, who is looking at him in a way he doesn't even want to label, for fear that he's wrong. It feels like pure adoration.

_If this was a television show, the scene would end there. There would be no giddy glances at each other, no added lines where they’d confess what they had always been thinking. _

But this isn’t television, which is a relief, because nothing about this moment could be skimmed down, could be altered. It’s imperfect, an almost last-minute shift, but it’s perfect.

And he doesn’t miss the soft look in Cyrus’s eyes when he, the captain of the basketball team, at a party full of people he doesn’t know, states bluntly, in Amber fashion: “I’m in love with you.”

Imperfect, an almost last-minute shift, but TJ wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Really?” Cyrus's incredulity is all warmth, and the smile that comes with it is the most beautiful thing TJ has ever seen. If this was a television show, this is where he’d want it to fade out.

Him and Cyrus, surrounded by the chaos of life, only aware of each other. How he's always wanted it to be, just too blind to see it.


End file.
